"fortified wine" news and stories

Laubade Floc de Gascogne blanc is 17% and a light yellow gold with an arresting aroma of sharp and bitter notes and alcohol. The taste is tart, sweet and dry at the same time. Quite sharp and fruity tasting, it has tones of pineapple and hints of pine sap, making it very interesting, refreshing and complex. I have tasted the December 2005 and the March 2006 bottlings, each when they were 8-10 months old, and found them quite similar.

Appelltion Floc de Gascogne contrôllée is a style of lightly fortified sweet / tart wine usually served in France chilled, without ice, in a wine glass as an aperitif. It also goes well with foie gras, dessert and chocolates. Floc de Gascogne is meant to be drunk immediately and should be enjoyed within a year or less of of the production. The date of bottling is usually hidden in very small type on the bottom of the back label. Once it gets to around a year or more in age it starts to deteriorate rapidly.

Floc de Gascogne is made from traditional Gascony recipes originating in the 16th century by combining 1/3 fresh, unfermented grape must (juice) with 2/3 of the finest Armagnac. The grapes are grown in Gascony vineyards located in Gers and a few parishes in Lot-et-Garonne and Landes of South West France. The Armagnac must be made from grapes grown, distilled, and aged in the same winery as the unfermented must. After blending, the wine is then stored in barrels for at least ten months for aging.

Dessert wines are fascinating to me, not only for their scrumptious sweet tastes, but also for the many complicated and unusual ways in which they are made. Most, but not all dessert wines tend to be higher in alcohol than regular wines. This is due to the large amount of sugars in the fresh juice, the more sugar, the greater the final alcohol levels produced during fermentation.

In taste these wines have a bold array of flavors like honey, apricot, peach, tropical fruit, caramel, dates, raisins, citrus, berries, floral notes, and much more. In body they progress from thin, light and barely sweet; to syrupy thick, sugar bombs. In color they run the spectrum from pale white to deep gold and light rose to orange and deep red. In style they can be still wines, slightly fizzy, or super bubbly tongue tinglers.

I use the term dessert wine to describe all wines that are mid to high quality, sweet wines that tend to be drunk after dinner or with dessert, or more appropriately as dessert, since many sweet wines actually don't go well when paired with sweet foods. Sweet and dessert wines have been around since the early days of the Roman Empire, some say even longer. They may have been the first wines that traveled outside the region in which they were made. This is because many of them have higher alcohol levels, as well as the large amounts of sugars; both of which when combined help to make wines age and travel well.